


Any Less Than Mine

by sanerontheinside



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Kisses, Love Confessions, M/M, Post-Battle of Geonosis, Qui-Gon Lives, anyway yeah so these guys have been mutually pining for ten years here have the resolution, implied/referenced mentions of violence but like duh it's Geonosis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-09
Updated: 2018-07-09
Packaged: 2019-06-07 20:32:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15227322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanerontheinside/pseuds/sanerontheinside
Summary: Obi-Wan had been pointedly ignoring him from the Healers’ Halls all the way to Qui-Gon’s old quarters, and Qui-Gon’s serenity was fraying badly. His former Padawan had been like this—brittle, tight-coiled, scorched-metal heat—for the last twenty minutes. Qui-Gon had elected not to mention it, to wait until Obi-Wan explained himself. He’d also felt, absurdly, like he had to fill the air with reassurances that he was fine, really, the Healers said he would recover, and have done with.“I’m listening to you, I’m just not paying attention,” Obi-Wan had snapped at him, barely three steps out of the Healers’ wing.





	Any Less Than Mine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jessebee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jessebee/gifts).



> You ever finish a fic, then leave it for later (*coughs* QuiObiWeek), then forget all about it when a 20k monster devours your brain and possesses you for a solid week if not longer?
> 
> I totally recommend it.   
> Minus the forgetting part.

 

Obi-Wan had been pointedly ignoring him from the Healers’ Halls all the way to Qui-Gon’s old quarters, and Qui-Gon’s serenity was fraying badly. His former Padawan had been like this—brittle, tight-coiled, scorched-metal heat—for the last twenty minutes. Qui-Gon had elected not to mention it, to wait until Obi-Wan explained himself. He’d also felt, absurdly, like he had to fill the air with reassurances that he was  _ fine _ _,_ really, the Healers said he would recover, and have done with. 

“I’m listening to you, I’m just not paying attention,” Obi-Wan had snapped at him, barely three steps out of the Healers’ wing. Now, he was steering Qui-Gon gruffly into his quarters and into his favourite armchair. 

Obi-Wan stood over him for a moment, fuming, shields tight as durasteel. But—just when Qui-Gon would have expected the Knight to leave—he turned around and disappeared into the kitchen. Qui-Gon blinked after him, listening to the slightly-sharper-than-necessary clinks of cups and kettle and tin canisters, the clipped and agitated preparation of tea. 

Qui-Gon wanted to sigh, and resisted the urge with all his might. Obi-Wan had said he wasn’t paying attention, after all. Qui-Gon didn’t want to irritate him any more than he obviously had already. 

Nor was Obi-Wan paying attention to his own injuries, which—Qui-Gon remembered quite abruptly—had been far more serious. 

_ That _   was his former Padawan to the letter. Qui-Gon felt as though his heart were expanding, trying to escape his chest, carried on a wave of exasperation and a wide streak of fondness. He did sigh, then, a half-smile briefly turning up the corners of his mouth. Qui-Gon took care to smooth it away, though, before pushing himself up out of the chair to follow Obi-Wan into the kitchen. It really wouldn’t be appropriate to the moment. 

Obi-Wan heard him, of course. “Oh, no you don’t, Qui-Gon—you might have refused the hoverchair, but by Force I am going to make sure you don’t have a  _ reason _ to get up for the next few hours. I’ll tie you down if I bloody well have to.”

_ Under other circumstances, that would have been a hell of a line. _ Qui-Gon processed the thought, panicked about it, and buried it in the space of a breath. 

“And yourself?” he asked instead, keeping his tone mild. Qui-Gon slotted himself gingerly into the corner of the kitchen counter at Obi-Wan’s side, leaning back against the edge. Obi-Wan’s fingers were worrying at the lid of the tea he’d chosen, twisting it about like a large coin, perhaps in an effort to keep himself from drumming his fingertips evenly against the counter. “I may not have caught the Healers’ instructions, but I certainly saw your injury. You shouldn’t be up and about either.”

Over the years of Obi-Wan’s apprenticeship, Qui-Gon had learned that his Padawan’s eyeroll had a very distinctive sound—a very particular kind of aggravated silence—and he was hearing it now. 

“You, Master Jinn, have been electrocuted. You’re practically shaking where you stand, and I can feel your teeth humming all the way over here,” Obi-Wan leaned away from him, for an added distance of perhaps a foot. For emphasis, of course. “Go sit back down before you fall down.” 

Perhaps, Qui-Gon amended to himself, he shouldn’t have refused the hoverchair. He simply hadn’t expected that after four days of travel, and another two of bacta treatment, he would still be suffering symptoms—but, no. The walk back to his rooms had brought back the tremors, along with a touch of dizziness. 

Terza had assured him it would pass. Eventually. 

Qui-Gon shook his head. “Your leg, Obi-Wan,” he said softly. 

“It’s fine.” 

The fine lines and bruised skin around Obi-Wan’s eyes, the pinch at the corners of his mouth, the pale cast of his skin—all of it told a different story. Qui-Gon ached to reach for him, to simply fold his Padawan against his chest like he would have done ten, fifteen years ago, and hold him. 

But since Obi-Wan’s Knighting, he’d grown increasingly convinced that the gesture would reveal too much of something that would likely be unwanted. Qui-Gon was not, habitually, a demonstrative person; it should have been easy to bury away the impulse. But in this moment, he found it especially difficult to suppress. 

“It’s not,” he whispered softly, instead. “You shouldn’t have been hurt.” 

Obi-Wan dashed the lid of the tea canister away with a noisy clatter and whipped around, something awfully close to a snarl twisting his features. “ _ You could have died, _ ” he hissed. 

Qui-Gon felt like he’d been shoved back—hard—into the edge of counter, by the force of the emotions in those words alone, as though by a pair of angry hands. He stared—trying to muster a better response than startled blinking in the face of an enraged Obi-Wan Kenobi. “That’s a little melodramatic, don’t you think?” he managed finally, with a hint of nervous laughter. 

“No,” Obi-Wan snapped. “How long will it take to get this through your thick skull, Master Jinn? You are  _ wanted _ here, you are  _ needed _ here, by more than just your Padawan.”

“Obi-Wan.” Qui-Gon sighed, and reached up to scrub a hand over his face. “My Padawan ran ahead, Obi-Wan, and challenged an opponent who vastly outmatched him. I wasn’t  _ trying _   to get myself killed, I—”

“You weren’t trying very hard to make sure you weren’t killed, either,” Obi-Wan observed, a touch bitterly. “Or did you think your former Master would spare you? Perhaps he would, but I’d thought you of all people would know better than to play games like that.” 

No, Qui-Gon hadn’t really expected to be spared in any way; not after he’d been on the receiving end of the Geonosians’ hospitality; not after Count Dooku’s rather… insincere shock at finding Qui-Gon suspended in that cell; and certainly not after Qui-Gon had crossed blades with his former Master. He was angry, and hurt, and he’d spent much of the last week trying to ignore it. Even now, he forced himself to shunt it aside. 

But all of that was entirely beside the point. 

“It wasn’t worth the hole in your femur,” Qui-Gon murmured, and dropped his hand from his face. 

“The bloody hell it wasn’t,” Obi-Wan said, with a bite in his words. “It’s my femur and I’ll decide whom to suffer holes in it for.” 

That surprised a helpless snort out of Qui-Gon, and he thought he’d glimpsed at least a brief answering spark in Obi-Wan’s eyes through the anger. He smiled, reached out with one hand to gently trace the curve of Obi-Wan’s cheek. “Say that again,” he said, soft and fond. 

Obi-Wan’s face contorted into something like baffled affront. “ _ Fuck _   you,” he managed, “don't change the subject.”

They stared at each other, Qui-Gon unable to completely hide his smile—though he tried to look apologetic about it. Obi-Wan was obviously at war with himself. He lasted about ten seconds before his expression crumpled into unwilling, stuttering laughter. Qui-Gon huffed out a relieved breath and joined him. 

They’d been wound tight, stretched past the end of their last reserves and not the least bit recovered. There wasn’t even any semblance of control between the two of them. In seconds the laughter deteriorated into helpless, near-hysterical giggles—breathless and edging into tears. Qui-Gon reached for his former Padawan, to grasp his shoulder, to offer some sort of grounding touch in the midst of his own floundering. To his surprise, Obi-Wan pushed his hand away. The brief contact practically made Qui-Gon’s teeth vibrate with a sudden awareness of Obi-Wan’s anger, inadvertently transmitted, and he sobered quickly. He ducked his head for a better look at Obi-Wan’s face, and found his expression pained, tear-streaked—contorted in something rather like fury. 

He’d only wanted to break the tension between them the way he’d always done before, with gentle teasing, and managed to ratchet it up further, instead. 

“Obi-Wan,” he whispered urgently, reaching for him, desperate to correct his error—only to have his hands batted away again. 

“I’m  _ furious _   with you, Qui-Gon,” Obi-Wan hissed, flush high on his cheeks. “I can’t believe—I almost lost you, again, and you—you stubborn, reckless  _ bantha— _ ”

“Obi-Wan—” 

“It’s always ‘do as I say, not as I do,’ with you. And to make it worse? Now you won’t even do me the courtesy of acknowledging—” 

“You jumped out of a bloody window!” Qui-Gon snapped. 

Obi-Wan almost flinched back, surprised. 

Qui-Gon regretted the sharp fall of his words almost instantly, but he was swept away, caught up in Obi-Wan’s whirling emotions and definitely not in control—the furthest thing from it. It was rather like standing outside oneself and watching a speederwreck in slow motion. 

“I’ve been watching you since Bandomeer—since you offered your life for mine in the mines. Never knowing when the next opportunity would present itself, when you might actually take it, without me there to stop you. You have the gall to accuse  _ me _ of being a bad example? Or did you expect me to wait for my Master to dispatch my Padawan a bit more efficiently? Should I have waited for him cut off something else? Perhaps something a little more vital than an arm?”

He shouldn’t have said it. He shouldn’t have said a word, Qui-Gon knew—certainly not like this, in the midst of an emotional maelstrom brought on by pain, exhaustion, and worry. 

Obi-Wan’s jaw clenched, his eyes burning overbright against dark circles and pale hollowed cheeks. “Your life is not worth any less than mine,  _ Master _   Jinn. I should think you are familiar with the lesson, since you tried so hard to drill it into me after Bandomeer.” 

Obi-Wan’s voice was tight and controlled; far too much like the voice he’d fallen back on, as Qui-Gon’s Padawan, in some of their worst disagreements, when he felt could not argue with his Master. 

Qui-Gon’s heart twisted sharply. He could count the number of times he’d heard that flat tone on one hand, and he’d been at fault for it every time.  _ Seasoned diplomat, my entire arse, _ he thought, regret and guilt creeping into his throat. As if it could have helped, to remind Obi-Wan so crudely of their respective ranks. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, “I’m so sorry, Obi-Wan.”

“For what? What are you apologising for now, Qui-Gon?” Obi-Wan’s voice snapped like frost on glass, dangerously soft. 

_ For everything, _   Qui-Gon wanted to say. Certainly for dredging up that old fear of his, and burdening Obi-Wan with it. For not doing enough to show his Padawan, his Knight-partner and dearest friend, just how much Obi-Wan meant to him. 

“For running ahead, when I promised you I’d wait for you,” Qui-Gon said, settling on safer territory. True, Anakin had been just as much to blame for that as he, but that wasn’t important. Qui-Gon really hadn’t achieved much by throwing himself after his Padawan, anyway. 

Obi-Wan stood silent, clearly wrestling his breathing and his pounding heart back under control. 

Qui-Gon hesitated a moment, fighting with himself over how much he should, how much he  _ could _ say. Then he abruptly settled the internal battle—with wavering conviction at best—by telling himself that it was necessary. Obi-Wan deserved it of him. “For leaving you with the impression that I would ever willingly seek to give myself over to the Force without you at my side.” 

Obi-Wan went deathly still. 

He glanced up at Qui-Gon, the lack of any readable expression on his face suddenly more terrifying than the fury and the grief Qui-Gon had seen there before. 

“You were right about Naboo,” Qui-Gon added in a hurry. “I would have willingly given up everything, every last thing, to ensure your survival.” 

“You tried to trade your life for mine,” Obi-Wan said, sounding heartbroken. The weight of desolation in the words was staggering. 

“I did,” Qui-Gon nodded, reaching for him again. This time, Obi-Wan allowed the movement, allowed Qui-Gon to touch him. To trace his cheek with two trembling fingers, in an echo of a gesture that Qui-Gon had once thought would be his last. “And I would do it a thousand times again. But I made you a promise, on Naboo. I swore I wouldn’t leave you, and I meant every word.” 

To his surprise, Obi-Wan leaned into the ghost of a touch, nuzzling hesitantly into Qui-Gon’s palm. Qui-Gon slipped his fingers into Obi-Wan’s hair, stroking a gentle thumb behind his ear where the Padawan braid had once been. “Come here?” he whispered. 

Obi-Wan sighed and stepped closer, into Qui-Gon’s arms. “What am I going to do with you,” he murmured, burying his face in Qui-Gon’s tunics and leaning into his bulk. 

“You’re shaking,” Qui-Gon said quietly, wrapping his arms around him, unutterably relieved. 

“Still angry. Tired.” 

_ Tired of being angry, _  Qui-Gon heard, though he supposed that thought wasn’t really aimed for him. With a soft sigh, he nudged Obi-Wan back an inch, then gently tugged him down, sinking to the floor. Obi-Wan followed with a bemused expression. 

“On the kitchen floor, Qui?” he asked, a wry, tiny grin at the corners of his mouth. 

“I’m not moving back to the couch,” Qui-Gon groused, only half joking. 

Obi-Wan just snorted faintly and let himself be turned and settled and hugged close again. “Just tell me when you notice the floor is both cold and hard.” 

“You tell me when you’re uncomfortable,” Qui-Gon countered, and rested his forehead against Obi-Wan’s temple. 

For a few long, precious moments, they simply sat and basked in each other’s presence. Qui-Gon couldn’t shake the thought, though, that he’d missed something—something important. Something that should’ve been obvious, and he felt, for some reason, like he’d been looking right past it for an inexcusably long time. 

It wasn’t until Obi-Wan reached up and poked the furrow in his brow that Qui-Gon realised he’d been rather obviously preoccupied. 

“What is it that’s got you staring holes in the tile, hmm?” Obi-Wan asked him lightly. 

Qui-Gon still wasn’t certain he should say anything, but—well, in for a credit… “What did you mean, earlier? When you said I was needed here by more than just my Padawan?”

Obi-Wan stiffened in his arms. “Ah,” he managed, in a strained voice. “I don’t suppose I could… persuade you to forget that, could I?” 

Qui-Gon pondered that for a moment. “I’d rather you didn’t. It felt—important. But in the end, it’s your decision.” 

Obi-Wan disentangled himself just far enough to give Qui-Gon a long, appraising look. “Important,” he echoed, fine, crisp Coruscanti diction prickling on the t’s. 

It was all Qui-Gon could do to hold his gaze; part of him squirmed guiltily, aching to lay himself bare for Obi-Wan—an old Jedi Master and his foolish, fearful heart. Another, smaller and more distant part wondered if he would need to, or if his brilliant, perceptive former Padawan had already long since seen right through him. 

Whatever Obi-Wan found, or perhaps did not find, in Qui-Gon’s expression, he sighed, and let himself slump. 

“I’m sorry, Qui-Gon. It was wasn’t fair of me to accuse you of having a death wish, just like that, out of nothing.” 

“Not out of nothing—”

“Please, stop talking, or I won’t get through this,” Obi-Wan interrupted, wry and self-deprecating. “Anakin left us both with few choices, anyway, and you shouldn’t be taking the blame for that. More than anything else, I was terrified. Of losing you, having to watch you die. Again. I don’t know how I’d survive that, Qui. I know I would,” he added when Qui-Gon opened his mouth to protest, “in the abstract sense. I just don’t know how. I barely remember anything that happened after Naboo as it is, and you survived.” 

Qui-Gon tightened his hold on Obi-Wan just a bit more. “Broken bonds have a tendency to do that,” he said quietly. 

Obi-Wan grimaced. “That they do.”

He was silent another long moment, though Qui-Gon was certain he wasn’t finished yet. 

“All those words about Attachment, all those cautionary tales—damn them. Useless tripe. None of it ever told me what to do with this. Mostly,” Obi-Wan hesitated, “mostly I didn’t want to lose you without ever telling you that I—I love you.” He frowned, his eyes flicked away. “Make of that what you will.” 

The room was too quiet, poised and waiting for some explosion that would never come. Qui-Gon stared at the man in his arms, stared at that familiar mouth, now pinched nervously. As if Obi-Wan hadn’t just given Qui-Gon everything he’d ever wanted. 

Well, not quite everything. More than almost anything else, at this precise moment, Qui-Gon wanted to kiss those lips, to smooth away lines of tension that should not be there, to—

He shouldn’t. He should say something, explain himself—but what could he possibly follow such courage with? 

“You always were a braver man than I,” Qui-Gon said softly. Obi-Wan’s frown tightened, apprehension giving way to confusion, but Qui-Gon didn’t let it get very far. He nudged forward to feather a light kiss at one downturned corner of Obi-Wan’s mouth, then lingered there, waiting. Waiting for any reaction at all, the tip of his nose just brushing Obi-Wan’s cheek. 

Obi-Wan shifted, turning, following the touch. “You—?” 

“Yes,” Qui-Gon breathed, and raised one hand to cup Obi-Wan’s cheek, smooth away the pinch at the corner of his mouth, “gods,  _ yes _ , for  _ years _ —” 

Obi-Wan cut him off with a searing kiss, deep and breath-stealing and desperate, his hands tangling and tightening in Qui-Gon’s hair. Qui-Gon spared a giddy thought to thank the Force they were already on the floor, or he would never have been able to keep his feet. He sank into the kiss, keening quietly, running one hand up and down Obi-Wan’s spine and curling the other into the nape of Obi-Wan’s neck, into his hair. He would have stayed like this forever, in perfect bliss, but for the need to breathe again. 

Obi-Wan broke away first, panting, hands still buried in Qui-Gon’s hair, holding him in place and pressing their foreheads together. Qui-Gon took in the sight of him, eyes closed, cheeks flushed—no longer with anger—hair a tangled mess. Somehow Obi-Wan had managed to turn around to face him completely, and was sitting back on his heels, though noticeably canted to the right, keeping his weight over the uninjured leg. 

“Should you be on your knees, love?” Qui-Gon murmured, concerned. 

“Only for you,” Obi-Wan replied instantly, with a faint smirk, and Qui-Gon snorted in spite of himself. 

“Imp. Not on the kitchen floor.” 

Obi-Wan’s smile widened irrepressibly. “I’ll have you on the counter, then.” 

Qui-Gon groaned through helpless laughter. “Obi-Wan, no.” 

“Over the kitchen table,” Obi-Wan pressed on. “The couch. You have no idea how many times I imagined you and me on that couch.”

Qui-Gon grinned. “Oh?”

“Mm. Usually when I got caught in a hyperdrive calculation.” 

That, he hadn’t expected at all. Qui-Gon choked back a surprised cough and raised both eyebrows. “That long…? Gods, Obi-Wan.” 

Obi-Wan finally opened his eyes, brilliant blue-green and sparkling. “Too much?” 

Qui-Gon shook his head slowly. “No. Just wondering how I could’ve been so damned oblivious, and for so long.”

“That makes two of us, then,” Obi-Wan sighed, pleased as a nerba cat. 

“Obi-Wan.” 

“Hmm?” 

Qui-Gon smiled and leaned forward to nuzzle Obi-Wan’s cheek again. “I’m about to break one of my old rules,” he rumbled into the Knight’s ear. 

Obi-Wan shivered in his arms. “And which one would that be?” 

“Tea,” Qui-Gon said, “in bed. With me.” 

Obi-Wan drew back, the beginnings of a pout on his face—though his eyes were still dancing. “Just tea?” 

“For now.” 

“We could… have tea on the couch?” Obi-Wan suggested slyly. 

“Later,” Qui-Gon chuckled, “later. Wherever we go, we need room to stretch out that leg—” he reached out and rested gentle fingertips on Obi-Wan’s knee. “And I wouldn’t mind something a bit softer than the tiled floor.” 

“So, are you inviting me to your bed just for the tea, or would there be something else involved?” 

Qui-Gon sighed happily, running one hand through Obi-Wan’s silky copper hair, and shook his head. “Irrepressible,” he murmured. “I am inviting you to my bed to share tea, and as many nights as you’ll have me. And, perhaps, we’ll think of something else to pass the time,” he suggested lightly. 

Obi-Wan’s smile was warm and slow, like molten sunlight. “Sounds perfect.”

Later, with the tea cooling untouched on the nightstand, Obi-Wan curled up against him and drifted off to sleep, exhausted, his breath soft and even against Qui-Gon’s neck. Qui-Gon sat for a long time, just running his fingers through Obi-Wan’s hair and not thinking of anything. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to both jessebee and meggory for wonderful beta as always ^^
> 
> Prompts from tumbls: several.   
> 1\. ‘Sarcasm’ prompt: I’m listening to you, I’m just not paying attention  
> 2\. ‘Sarcasm’ prompt: That’s a little melodramatic, don’t you think?  
> 3\. Skyy’s kiss prompts: staring at the other’s lips, trying not to kiss them, before giving in.   
> 4\. Skyy’s kiss prompts: being unable to open their eyes for a few moments afterward
> 
> The sarcasm prompts are from an anon forever ago, and I'm really sorry about how long I take for to fill the things :/ but here they are?


End file.
